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The Passionate Friends Chapter 3 - Intentions and the Lady Mary Christian Parts 7-11 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three, Part seven to eleven of The Passionate Friends
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  Speaker 1: by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain recording by Peter Eastman. Chapter the third Intentions
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  Speaker 1: and the Lady Mary. Christian continued seven. I would like
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  Speaker 1: very much to give you a portrait of Mary as
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  Speaker 1: she was in those days. Every portrait I ever had
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  Speaker 1: of her I burnt in the sincerity of what was
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  Speaker 1: to have been our final separation, and now I have
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  Speaker 1: nothing of her in my possession. I suppose that in
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  Speaker 1: the files of old illustrated weekly somewhere a score of
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  Speaker 1: portraits must be findable. Yet photographs have a queer quality
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  Speaker 1: of falsehood. They have no movement. And always there was
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  Speaker 1: a little movement about Mary, just as there is always
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  Speaker 1: a little set about flowers. She was slender and graceful,
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  Speaker 1: so that she seemed taller than she was. She had
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  Speaker 1: beautifully shaped arms, and a brightness in her face. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed to me always that there was light in her face,
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  Speaker 1: more than the light that shone upon it. Her fair,
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  Speaker 1: very slightly reddish hair. It was warm like Australian gold,
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  Speaker 1: flowed with a sort of joyous bravery back from her low,
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  Speaker 1: broad forehead. The color under her delicate skin was bright
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  Speaker 1: and quick, and her mouth always smiled faintly. There was
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  Speaker 1: a peculiar charm for me about her mouth, a whimsicality,
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  Speaker 1: a sort of humorous resolve, in the way in which
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  Speaker 1: the upper lip fell upon the lower, and in a
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  Speaker 1: faint obliquity that increased with her quickening smile. She spoke
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  Speaker 1: with a very clear, delicate intonation that made one want
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  Speaker 1: to hear her speak again. She often said faintly, dare things,
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  Speaker 1: and when she did, she had that little catch in
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  Speaker 1: the breath of one who dares. She did not talk hastily.
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  Speaker 1: Often before she spoke came a brief, grave pause. Her
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  Speaker 1: eyes were brightly blue, except when the spirit of mischief
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  Speaker 1: took her, and then they became black. And there was
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  Speaker 1: something about the upper and lower lids that made them
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  Speaker 1: not only the prettiest, but the sweetest and kindliest eyes
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  Speaker 1: in the world. And she moved with a quiet rapidity,
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  Speaker 1: without any needless movements, to do whatever she had a
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  Speaker 1: mind to do. But how impossible it is to convey
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  Speaker 1: the personal charm of a human being. I catalogued these things,
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  Speaker 1: and it is as if she moved about silently behind
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  Speaker 1: my stumbling enumeration, and smiled at me still with her
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  Speaker 1: eyes a little darkened, mocking me that phantom will never
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  Speaker 1: be gone from my mind. It was all of these things,
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  Speaker 1: and none of these things, that made me hers, as
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  Speaker 1: I have never been any other persons. We grew up together.
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  Speaker 1: The girl of nineteen mingles in my memory with the
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  Speaker 1: woman of twenty five. Always we were equals, or if anything,
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  Speaker 1: she was the better of us two. I never made
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  Speaker 1: love to her in the commoner sense of the word,
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  Speaker 1: a sense in which the woman is conceived of as shy, unawakened, younger,
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  Speaker 1: more plastic, and the man as tempting, creating responses, persuading
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  Speaker 1: and compelling. We made love to each other as youth should.
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  Speaker 1: We were friends lit by a passion. I think that
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  Speaker 1: is the best love. If I could wish your future,
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  Speaker 1: I would have you love some one neither older and stronger,
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  Speaker 1: nor younger and weaker than yourself. I would have you
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  Speaker 1: have neither a toy nor a devotion, for the one
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  Speaker 1: makes the woman contemptible, and the other the man. There
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  Speaker 1: should be something almost sisterly between you. Love neither a
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  Speaker 1: goddess nor a captive woman. But I would wish you
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  Speaker 1: a better fate in your love than chanced to me.
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  Speaker 1: Mary was not only naturally far more quick minded, more
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  Speaker 1: swiftly understanding than I, but more widely educated. Mine was
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  Speaker 1: the stiff limited education of the English public school and university.
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  Speaker 1: I could not speak and read and think French and
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  Speaker 1: German as she could. For all that I had a
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  Speaker 1: pedantic knowledge of the older forms of those tongues, and
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  Speaker 1: the classics and mathematics upon which I had spent the
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  Speaker 1: substance of my years, or indeed of little use to me,
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  Speaker 1: have never been of any real use to me. They
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  Speaker 1: were latters, too clumsy to carry about, and too short
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  Speaker 1: to reach anything. My general ideas came from the newspapers
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  Speaker 1: and the reviews. She, on the other hand, had read much,
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  Speaker 1: had heard no end of good conversation, the conversation of
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  Speaker 1: people who mattered, had thought for herself, and had picked
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  Speaker 1: the brains of her brothers. Her mother had let her
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  Speaker 1: read whatever books she liked, partly because she believed that
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  Speaker 1: was the proper thing to do, and partly because it
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  Speaker 1: was so much less trouble to be liberal in such things.
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  Speaker 1: We had the gravest conversations. I do not remember that
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  Speaker 1: We talked much of love, though we were very much
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  Speaker 1: in love. We kissed, sometimes greatly daring. We walked hand
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  Speaker 1: in hand. Once I took her in my arms and
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  Speaker 1: carried her over a swampy place beyond the killing wood,
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  Speaker 1: and held her closely to me. That was a great
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  Speaker 1: event between us. But we were shy of one another,
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  Speaker 1: shy even of very intimate words and a thousand daring
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  Speaker 1: and beautiful things I dreamt of saying to her, went
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  Speaker 1: and said, I do not remember any endearing names from
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  Speaker 1: that time. But we jested and shared our humors, shaped
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  Speaker 1: our developing ideas in quaint forms to amuse one another,
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  Speaker 1: and talked as young men talked together. We talked of religion.
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  Speaker 1: I think she was the first person to thaw the
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  Speaker 1: private silences that had kept me bound in these matters,
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  Speaker 1: even from myself for years. I can still recall her face,
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  Speaker 1: a little flushed and coming nearer to mine after avowals
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  Speaker 1: and comparisons. But Stephen, she says, if none of these
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  Speaker 1: things are really true, why do they keep on telling
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  Speaker 1: them to us? What is true? What are we for?
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  Speaker 1: What is everything for? I remember the awkwardness I felt
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  Speaker 1: at these indelicate thrusts into topics I had come to
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  Speaker 1: regard as forbidden. I suppose there's a sort of truth
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  Speaker 1: in them, I said, And then more sidenz esquely, endless
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  Speaker 1: people wiser than we are, yes, she said, but that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't matter to us. Endless people wiser than we are
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  Speaker 1: have said one thing, and endless people wiser than we
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  Speaker 1: are have said exactly the opposite. It's we who have
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  Speaker 1: to understand for ourselves. We don't understand, Stephen. I was
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  Speaker 1: forced to a choice between faith and denial. But I
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  Speaker 1: parried with questions. Don't you, I asked, feel there is
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  Speaker 1: a God? She hesitated. There is something, something very beautiful,
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  Speaker 1: she said, and stopped, as if her breath had gone.
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  Speaker 1: That is all I know, Stephen. And I remember too
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  Speaker 1: that we talked endlessly about the things I was to
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  Speaker 1: do in the world. I do not remember that we
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  Speaker 1: talked about the things she was to do. By some
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  Speaker 1: sort of instinct and some sort of dexterity. She evaded
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  Speaker 1: that from the very first she had reserves from me.
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  Speaker 1: But my career and purpose became, as it were, the
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  Speaker 1: form in which we discussed all the purposes of life.
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  Speaker 1: I became man in her imagination. The protagonist of the world.
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  Speaker 1: At first, I displayed the modest, worthy desire for respectable
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  Speaker 1: service that Harbury had taught me. But her clear, skeptical
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  Speaker 1: little voice pierced and tore all those pretenses to shreds.
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  Speaker 1: Do some decent public work, I said, or some such phrase.
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  Speaker 1: But is that all you want? I hear her asking,
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  Speaker 1: is that all you want? I lay prone upon the
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  Speaker 1: turf and dug up a root of grass with my
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  Speaker 1: pen knife. Before I met you, it was, I said,
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  Speaker 1: And now I want you. I'm nothing to want. I
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  Speaker 1: want you to want all the world. Why shouldn't you,
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  Speaker 1: I think I must have talked of the greatness of
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  Speaker 1: serving the empire. Yes, but splendidly, she insisted, not doing
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  Speaker 1: little things for other people who aren't doing any anything
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  Speaker 1: at all. I want you to conquer people and lead people.
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  Speaker 1: When I see you, Stephen, sometimes I almost wish I
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  Speaker 1: were a man in order to be able to do
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  Speaker 1: all the things that you are going to do. For you,
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  Speaker 1: I said, for you, I stretched out my hand for hers,
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  Speaker 1: and my gesture went disregarded. She sat rather crouched together,
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  Speaker 1: with her eyes gazing far away across the great spaces
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  Speaker 1: of the park that is what women are for, she said,
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  Speaker 1: to make men see how splendid life can be, to
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  Speaker 1: lift them up out of a sort of timid grubbiness.
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  Speaker 1: She turned upon me suddenly, Stephen, She said, promise me.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever you become, you promise and swear here and now,
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  Speaker 1: never to be gray and grubby, never to be humpy
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  Speaker 1: and snuffy, never to be respectable and modest and dull
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  Speaker 1: and a little fat like like everybody ever. I swear,
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  Speaker 1: I said, by me, by you no book to kiss,
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  Speaker 1: Please give me your hand. Eight. All through that summer
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  Speaker 1: we saw much of each other. I was up at
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  Speaker 1: the house perhaps every other day. We young people were
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  Speaker 1: supposed to be all in a company together down by
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  Speaker 1: the tennis lawns. But indeed we dispersed and came and
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  Speaker 1: went by a kind of tacit understanding, Guy and Philip
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  Speaker 1: each with one of the fawny girls, and I with Mary.
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  Speaker 1: I put all sorts of constructions upon the freedom I
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  Speaker 1: was given with her. But I perceive now that we
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  Speaker 1: still seemed scarcely more than children to Lady Ladyslaw, and
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  Speaker 1: that the idea of our marriage was as inconceivable to
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  Speaker 1: her as if we had been brother and sister matrimonially.
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  Speaker 1: I was as impossible as one of the stable boys.
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  Speaker 1: All the money I could hope to earn for years
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  Speaker 1: to come would not have sufficed even to buy merry clothes.
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  Speaker 1: But as yet we thought little of matters, so remote,
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  Speaker 1: glad in our wonderful new discovery of love. And when
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  Speaker 1: at last I went off to Oxford, albeit the parting
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  Speaker 1: moved us to much tenderness and vows and embraces, I
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  Speaker 1: had no suspicion that never more in all our lives
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  Speaker 1: would marry and I meet freely and gladly without restriction.
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  Speaker 1: Yet so it was from that day came restraints and difficulties.
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  Speaker 1: The shadow of furtiveness fell between us. Our correspondence had
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  Speaker 1: to be concealed. I went to Oxford as one goes
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  Speaker 1: into exile. She to London. I would post to her
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  Speaker 1: so that the letters reached landor house before lunch time
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  Speaker 1: when the son of Lady Ladyslaw came over the horizon.
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  Speaker 1: But indeed, as yet no one was watching her letters. Afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: as she moved about, she gave me other instructions, and
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  Speaker 1: for the most part I wrote to her in envelopes
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  Speaker 1: addressed for her by one of the fawny girls, who
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  Speaker 1: was under her spell, and made no enquiry for what
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  Speaker 1: purpose these envelopes were needed to me, of course, Mary
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  Speaker 1: wrote without restraint. All her letters to me were destroyed
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  Speaker 1: after our crisis, but some of mine to her she
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  Speaker 1: kept for many years. At last they came back to me,
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  Speaker 1: so that I have them now. And for all their
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  Speaker 1: occasional cheapness and crudity, I do not find anything in
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  Speaker 1: them to be ashamed of. They reflect they are chiefly
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  Speaker 1: concerned with that search for a career of fine service,
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  Speaker 1: which was then the chief preoccupation of my mind. The
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  Speaker 1: bias is all to a large imperialism. But it is
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  Speaker 1: manifest that already the first ripples of a rising tide
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  Speaker 1: of criticism against the imperialist movement had reached and were
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  Speaker 1: exercising me. In one letter, I am explaining that imperialism
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  Speaker 1: is not a mere aggressiveness, but the establishment of peace
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  Speaker 1: and order throughout half the world. We may never withdraw,
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  Speaker 1: I wrote, with all the confidence of a foreign secretary,
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  Speaker 1: from all these great territories of ours, but we shall
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  Speaker 1: stay only to raise their peoples ultimately to an equal
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  Speaker 1: citizenship with ourselves. And then, in the same letter and
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  Speaker 1: if I do not devote myself to the empire, what
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  Speaker 1: else is there that gives anything like the same opportunity
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  Speaker 1: of a purpose in life? I find myself in another
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  Speaker 1: tolerantly disposed to accept socialism, but manifestly hostile to the
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  Speaker 1: narrow mental habits of the socialists the large note of youth.
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  Speaker 1: And in another I am clearly very proud and excited,
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  Speaker 1: and a little mockmodest over the success of my first
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  Speaker 1: two speeches in the Union. On the whole, I like
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  Speaker 1: the rather boyish, tremendously serious young man of those letters,
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  Speaker 1: an egotist, of course, But what youth was ever anything else?
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  Speaker 1: I may write that much freely now, for by this
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  Speaker 1: time he is almost as much outside my personality as
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  Speaker 1: you or my father. He is the young Stratton, one
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  Speaker 1: of a line. I like his gravity. If youth is
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  Speaker 1: not grave, with all the great spectacle of life opening
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  Speaker 1: at its feet, then surely no age need be grave.
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  Speaker 1: I love and envy his simplicity and honesty. His sham,
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  Speaker 1: modesty and so forth are so translucent and scarcely to matter.
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  Speaker 1: It is clear that I was opening my heart to
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  Speaker 1: myself as I open to Mary. I wasn't acting to
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  Speaker 1: her I meant what I said, and as I remember
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  Speaker 1: her answers, she took much the same high tone with me,
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  Speaker 1: though her style of writing was far lighter than mine,
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  Speaker 1: more easy and witty, and less continuous. She flashed and flickered.
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  Speaker 1: As for confessed love making. There is very little I
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  Speaker 1: find at the end of one of my notes after
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  Speaker 1: the signature I love you, I love you. And she
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  Speaker 1: was even more restrained, such little phrases as dear Stephenage,
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  Speaker 1: that was one of her odd names for me, I
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  Speaker 1: wish you were here, or dear dear Stephenage, or epistolary events,
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  Speaker 1: and I would reread the blessed wonderful outbreak a hundred times.
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  Speaker 1: Our separation lengthened. There was a queer detached, unexpected meeting
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  Speaker 1: in life in December for some afternoon gathering. I was shy,
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  Speaker 1: and the more disconcerted because she was in winter town
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  Speaker 1: clothes that made her seem strange and changed. Then came
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  Speaker 1: the devastating intimation that all through the next summer the
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  Speaker 1: Lattice Laws were to be in Scotland. I did my
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  Speaker 1: boyish utmost to get to Scotland. They were at Langkard,
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  Speaker 1: near Invermorston, and the nearest thing I could contrive was
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  Speaker 1: to join a reading party in Sky, a reading party
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  Speaker 1: of older men who manifestly had no great desire for me.
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  Speaker 1: For more than a year we never met at all,
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  Speaker 1: and all sorts of new things happened to us. Both
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  Speaker 1: I perceived they happened to me, but I did not
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  Speaker 1: think they happened to her. Of course we changed, of course,
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  Speaker 1: in a measure, and relatively we forgot. Of course, there
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  Speaker 1: were weeks when we never thought of each other at all.
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  Speaker 1: Then would come phases of hunger. I remember a little
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  Speaker 1: note of hers, Oh stephanage. It was scrawled perhaps next Easter.
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  Speaker 1: Next Easter was an aching desolation. The blinds of Burnmore
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  Speaker 1: House remained drawn. The place was empty except for three
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  Speaker 1: old servants on board wages. The Christians went instead to
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  Speaker 1: the Canary Isles, following some occult impulse of Lady Ladislaw's.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Lord Ladislaw spent the winter in Italy. What an empty,
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  Speaker 1: useless beauty the Great Park possessed during those seasons of intermission,
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  Speaker 1: there were a score of places in it we had
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  Speaker 1: made our own. Her letters to Oxford would cease for weeks,
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  Speaker 1: and suddenly revive and become frequent. Now and then would
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  Speaker 1: come a love letter that seemed to shine like stars
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  Speaker 1: as I read it. For the most part, they were
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  Speaker 1: low pitched, friendly or humorous letters in a roundish, girlish
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  Speaker 1: writing that was maturing into a squarely characteristic hand. My
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  Speaker 1: letters to her, too, I suppose, varied as greatly we
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  Speaker 1: began to be used to living so apart. There were
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  Speaker 1: weeks of silence. Yet always when I thought of my
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  Speaker 1: life as a whole, Mary ruled it with her alone.
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  Speaker 1: I had talked of my possible work and purpose to
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  Speaker 1: her alone, had I confessed to ambitions beyond such modest
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  Speaker 1: worthiness as a public school drills us to effect. Then
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the whole sky of my life lit up again with
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  Speaker 1: a strange light of excitement and hope. I had a note,
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  Speaker 1: glad and serenely friendly, to say they were to spend
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  Speaker 1: all the summer at Burnmore. Remember how I handled and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: scrutinized that letter, seeking for some intimation that our former
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: intimacy was still alive. We were to meet, How should
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  Speaker 1: we meet? How would she look at me? What would
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  Speaker 1: she think of me? Nine? Of course it was all different,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: our first encounter in this new face had a quality
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  Speaker 1: of extreme disillusionment. The warm, living creature who would whisper,
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  Speaker 1: who would kiss with wonderful lips, who would say strange
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  Speaker 1: daring things, who had soft hair one might touch with
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  Speaker 1: a thrilling and worshipful hand, who changed one at a
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  Speaker 1: word or a look into a god of pride, became
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  Speaker 1: as if she had been no more than a dream.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: A self possessed young aristocrat in white and brown glanced
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  Speaker 1: at me from amidst a group of brilliant people on
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  Speaker 1: the terrace, nodded, as it seemed, quite carelessly in acknowledgment
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of my salutation, and resumed her confident conversation with a tall,
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  Speaker 1: stooping man, no less a person than Evesham, the Prime Minister.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: He was lunching at Burnmore, on his way across country
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  Speaker 1: to the Rileys. I heard that dear laugh of hers,
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  Speaker 1: as ready and easy as when she laughed with me.
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  Speaker 1: I had not heard it for nearly three years, nor
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  Speaker 1: any sound that had its sweetness. But mister Evesham, she
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: was saying, nowadays, we don't believe that sort of thing.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of things still for you to believe,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: says mister Evesham, beaming a lot of things. Once capacity increases,
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  Speaker 1: it grows with exercise. Justin will bear me out. Beyond
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  Speaker 1: her stood an undersized, brown plaid middle aged man with
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  Speaker 1: a big head, a dark face, and expressive brown eyes,
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  Speaker 1: fixed now in unrestrained admiration on Mary's laughing face. This then,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: was Justin, the incredibly rich and powerful, whose comprehensive operations
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  Speaker 1: could make and break a thousand fortunes in a day.
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  Speaker 1: He answered Ivesham carelessly, with his gaze still on Mary,
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  Speaker 1: and in a voice too low for my straining ears.
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  Speaker 1: There was some woman in the group also, but she
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: has left nothing upon my mind whatever, except an effect
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  Speaker 1: of black and a very decorative green sunshade. She greeted
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  Speaker 1: Justin's remark, I remember, with a little yelp of laughter
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  Speaker 1: that characterized that set. I think there was some one
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  Speaker 1: else in the group, but I cannot clearly recall who. Presently,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: as I and Philip made unreal conversation together, I saw
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Mary disengage herself and come towards us. It was as
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  Speaker 1: if a princess came towards a baker. Absurd are the
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  Speaker 1: changes of fays between women and men A year or
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: so ago, and all of us had been, but the
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  Speaker 1: children together. Now Here were I and Philip mere youth,
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  Speaker 1: still nobody's echoes and aspirations, prude promises at the best.
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  Speaker 1: And here was Mary in full flower, as glorious and
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  Speaker 1: central as the Hampton Court Azalea's in spring. And this
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: is Stephen, she said, aglow with happy confidence. I made
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: no memorable reply, and there was a little pause, thick
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: with mute questionings. After lunch, she said, with her eye
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: on mine, I am going to measure against you on
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the steps. I'd hoped when you weren't looking, I might
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: creep up. I've taken no advantage, I said, You've kept
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: your lead. Justin had followed her towards us, and now
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: held out a hand to Philip. Well, Philip, my boy,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: he said, and defined our places. Philip made some introductory
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: gesture with a word or so towards me. Justin glanced
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: at me as one might glance at some one's new dog,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: gave an expressionless nod to my stiff movement of recognition,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and addressed himself at once to Mary, Lady Mary, he said,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I've wanted to tell you. I caught her quick eye
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: for a moment and knew she had more to say
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to me, but neither she nor I had the skill
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and alacrity to get that said. I wanted to tell you,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: said Justin, I've found a little Japanese who's done exactly
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: what you wanted with that group of dwarf maples. She
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: clearly didn't understand. But what did I want, mister Justin,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: she asked, don't say that you forget, cried Justin, Oh,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: don't tell me you forget you wanted a little exact
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: copy of a Japanese house. I've had it done beneath
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the trees. And so you're back and burn more, mister Stratton, said,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Lady Ladyslaw, intervening between me and their duelog And I
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: never knew how pleased Mary was with this faithful realization
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of her passing and forgotten fancy. My hostess greeted me
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: warmly and pressed my hand, smiled mechanically, and looked over
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: my shoulder all the while to mister Evesham and her
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: company generally. And then came the deep uproar of a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: gong from the house, and we were all moving in
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: groups and couples luncheonward. Justin walked with Lady Mary, and
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: she was I saw an inch taller than his squat solidity.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: A tall lady in rose pink had taken possession of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Guy Evesham and Lady Ladislaw made the two centers of
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a straggling group who were bandying recondite political illusions. Then
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: came one or two couples and trios, with nothing very
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: much to say and active ears. Philip and I brought
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: up the rear silently and in all humility. Even young
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Guy had gone over our heads. I was too full
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: of a stupendous realization for any words. Of course strength
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: those years she had been doing no end of things,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and while I had been just drudging with lectures and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: books and theorizing about the empire and what I could
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: do with it, and taking exercise, she had learnt it
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: seemed the world ten. Lunch was in the Great dining Room.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: There was a big table and two smaller ones. We
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: sat down anyhow, but the first comer had grouped themselves
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: about Lady Ladyslaw and Evesham and Justin and Mary in
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a central orb, and I had to drift perforce to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: one of the satellites. I secured a seat whence I
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: could get a glimpse, ever and again over Justin's assiduous
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: shoulders of a delicate profile, and I found myself immediately
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: engaged in answering the innumerable impossible questions of Lady Viping,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the widow of terrible old Sir Joshua, that devastating divorce
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: court judge who didn't believe in divorces. His domestic confidences
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: had I think corrupted her mind altogether. She cared for
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: nothing but evidence. She was a rustling, incessant, sandy peering
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: woman with a lorn yette and rapid, confidential lisping undertones,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and she wanted to know who everybody was and how
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: they were related. This kept us turning towards the other tables,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and when my information failed, she would call upon Sir
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Godfrey Clavier, who was explaining rather testily on account of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: her interruptions to Philip Christian and a little lady in
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: black and the elder fawny girl, just why he didn't
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: believe Lady ladislaw'sknew golf course would succeed. There were two
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: or three other casual people at our table, one of
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the rodent girls, a young guardsman, and I think some
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: other man whom I don't clearly remember, and so that's
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the great mister. Justin rustled Lady Viping and stared across me.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I saw Evesham leaning rather over the table to point
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: some remark at Mary, and noted her lips part to reply.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: What is the word, insisted Lady Viping, like a fly
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: in my ear? I turned on her guiltily. Whether it's bracky,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: said Lady Viping, or whether it's Dolly, I can never remember.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I guessed she was talking of Justin's head. Oh, racchy cephalic,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I said, I had lost Mary's answer. They say he's
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a woman hater, said lady Viping. It hardly looks like
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: it now, does it? U who? I asked? What? Oh, Justin,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the great financial cannibal. Suppose she turned him into a philanthropist?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Stranger things have happened. Look now, the man's face is
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: positively tender. I hated looking, and I could not help
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: but look. It was as if this detestable old woman
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: was dragging me down and down, down, far below all dignity,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to her own level of a peeping observer. Justin was
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: saying something to Mary in an undertone, something that made
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: her glance up swiftly and at me before she answered,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: there I was, with my head side by side with
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: those quivering dyed curls, that flighty black bonnet, that remorseless
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: observant Lorgnette, I could have sworn aloud at the hopeless
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: indignity of my pose. I saw merry color quickly before
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I looked away. Charming, isn't she said Lady Viping. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I discovered those infernal glasses were for a moment ottering me.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: They shut with a click, Ham, said Lady Viping. I
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: told him no ham, And now I remember I like ham,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: or rather I like spinach. I forgot the spinach. One
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: has the ham for the spinach, don't you think? Yes?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Tell him she's a perfect dressed in ornament, mister Stratton.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: She's adorable, Lorgnette, and search for fresh topics. Who is
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the dark lady with a slight mustache sitting there next
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to guy Sir Godfrey? Who is the dark lady? No?
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I don't mean Mary Fidden over there, Missus Roperston, Oh
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: thee missus Roperston renewed Lorgnette, and click, yes, ham with spinach,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of spinach. There's mister Evesham laughing again. He's
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: greatly amused, unusual for him to laugh twice at least aloud.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Russell an adjustment of Lorgnette. Mister Stratton, don't you think
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: exactly like a little shepherdess? Only I can't say. I
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: think mister Justin is like a shepherd on the whole,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: more like a large claws in age are now guy
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: would do? As a pair. They're beautiful. Pity their brother
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and sister. Curious how that boy manages to be big
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and yet delicate, hum mixed mantel ornaments, Sir Godfrey, how
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: old is missus Roperston? You never know? On principle, I
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: think I shall make mister Stratton guess what do you think,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: mister Stratton? You never guess? On principle, Well, we're all
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: very high, principled, fresh exploratory movements of the Lorgnette. Mister Stratton,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: tell me is that little piqued man near Lady ladyslaw?
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Mister Roperston, I thought as much. All this chatter is
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: mixed up in my mind with an unusual sense of
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: hovering attentive men servants who seemed, all of them, to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: my heated imagination, to be watching me, and particularly one
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: clean shaven, reddish haired, full faced young man. Lest I
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: look too much at the lady Mary Christian. Of course,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: they were merely watching our plates and glasses. But my
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: nerves and temper were now in such a state that
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: if my man went off to the buffet to get
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Sir Godfrey the pickled walnuts, I fancied he went to
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: report the progress of my infatuation, and if a strange
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: face appeared with the cider cup, that this was a
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: new observer come to mark the revelation of my behavior.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: My food embarrassed me. I found hidden meetings in the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: talk of the roadent girl and her guardsman, and an
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: ironical discovery in Sir Godfrey's eye. I felt indignant with Mary.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I felt she disowned me and deserted me, and repudiated me,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that she ought, in some manner to have recognized me.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I gave her no credit for her speech to me
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: before the lunch, or her promise to measure against me again.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I blinded myself to all her frank friendliness. I felt
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: she ought not to notice, justin ought not to answer him. Clearly,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: she liked those men to flatter her. She liked it,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I remember, too, so that I must have noted it
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and felt it then as a thing perceived for the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: first time, the large dignity of the room, the tall
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: windows and splendid rich curtains, the darkened hopners upon the walls.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I noted too the quality and abundance of the table things.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: And there were grapes and peaches, strawberries, cherries and green
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: almonds piled lavishly above the waiting dessert plates, with the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: golden knives and forks upon a table in the sunshine
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of the Great Bay. The very sunshine filtered through the tall,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: narrow panes from the great chestnut trees without seemed of
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: a different quality from the common light of day. I
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: felt like a poor relation. I sympathized with anarchists. We
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: had come out of the park. Now finally, both Merry
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and I into this. Mister Stratton, I am sure, agrees
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: with me. For a time time I had been marooned conversationally,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and Lady Viping had engaged Sir Godfrey. Evidently he was refractory,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and she was back at me. Look at it now
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: in profile, she said, and directed me once more to
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: that unendurable grouping. Justin again. It's a heavy face, I said,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: It's a powerful face. I wouldn't care anyhow to be
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: up against it as people say, and the lorgnette shut
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: with a click. What is this? Peaches yes, and give
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: me some cream. I hovered long for that measuring I
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: had been promised on the steps, but either Mary had
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: forgotten or she deemed it wiser to forget. Eleven, I
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: took my leave of Lady Ladislaw when the departure of
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Evilsham broke the party into dispersing fragments. I started down
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the drive towards the rectory, and then vaulted the railings
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: by the paddock and struck a cross beyond the mirror.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I could not go home with the immense burthen of
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: thought and new ideas and emotions that had come upon me.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I felt confused and shattered to incoherence by the new
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: quality of Mary's atmosphere. I turned my steps towards the wilder,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: lonelier parts of the park, beyond the killing Wood, and
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: lay down in a wide space of grass between two
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: divergent thickets of bracken, and remained there for a very
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: long time. There it was in the park that for
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the first time I pitted myself against life upon a
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: definite issue. And prepared my first experience of defeat. I
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: will have her, I said, hammering at the turf with
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: my fist. I will I do not care if I
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: give all my life. Then I lay still and bit
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the sweetness out of joints of grass, and presently thought
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: and planned. End of Chapter three